


Won't You Stay a While

by Notsohappycamper



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, M/M, Post-Battle of Five Armies, awkward fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 00:24:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2831408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notsohappycamper/pseuds/Notsohappycamper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Thorin lives, stops by at 4 for some tea, and watches the trees grow with a very good friend. (Much feelings and mush ahead)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't You Stay a While

* * *

 

The spoon in his hand drops to the floor when he hears it, because it’s so loud and demanding.

He’d been relaxing all day; watching young ones scurry up and down the hill, arguing with a few rather ornery neighbors who had been bugging him to end about his journey and the authenticity of it, and watering a certain new addition to the little garden close to his hobbit-hole. Little progress as of yet, but the small acorn was a sturdy thing - been across Middle-earth and back - and Bilbo had nothing but patience for it.

Life was a tad bit lackluster, he had to admit, now that his journey had come to an end. It had only been a few years, three at most, but traveling through foreign lands, meeting incredible, courageous people and beasts alike, and battling with stupendous armies still seemed a little more riveting than washing plates while waiting for tea to brew. As much as he adored his little hole in the shire, Bilbo reckoned he couldn’t stomp his craving for adventure if his life depended on it.

He had started the tea a few minutes ago and was almost done cleaning dishes when he heard it, the noise tragically re-dirtying his spoon as it fell to the floor. He groaned more theatrically than he really needed to, but he was so close to being done with dishes, dammit.

“Yes, yes, hold on!” he shouts, though the knocking doesn’t continue after the initial two loud bangs, so there is no reason to rush. Still, he feels a need to.

After bending to retrieve the lost spoon and muttering sufficiently about it, he stomps his way to the door and takes a breath before throwing it open to whomever felt the need to bother him this evening.

Air leaves him as quickly as he took it into his lungs.

The figure at his door is standing tall and strong, shoulders back, one eager foot forward, silent and smirking. He looks so out of place here, as much as he did the first time he stepped foot in Bag End, still as gruff and valorous as he always appeared. Perhaps even more so now.

Bilbo almost believes that he’s dreaming, until the dwarf opens his mouth and murmurs in his deep voice.

“Well? Aren’t you going to welcome your guest...” His smirk grows and curls around his last word. “Burglar?”

When Bilbo doesn’t move, the Dwarf King moves for him, stepping around him and closing the door. Bilbo continues to stare at its wood, frozen, until Thorin rumbles out a chuckle and claps the hobbit on his shoulder. At this, Bilbo snaps to attention and turns finally to fully regard his guest.

His mouth opens. He breathes in deeply. His mouth closes. His fingers fiddle with the spoon in his hands.

Thorin watches him the whole while with soft eyes, with something close to adoration, before sighing and cocking his hip with a glance down to the floor.

“Bilbo...” he mutters, exasperated, as if he’s fed up with Bilbo’s silence, as if he has a right to be.

It irritates Bilbo, how Thorin could show up at his door unannounced, after three years, and have the audacity to get frustrated with his reaction. This irritation pushes him out of his shocked stupor into action.

“I. I just. I,” he stumbles around words that he can’t quite make a sentence with. “You. You’re.”

He’s pulled into a hug before he can finish stammering out the useless words. Thorin takes him in, warm and familiar, chuckling into his ear again, and Bilbo just hangs on for the ride.

Hugging Thorin grounds him in some way. It’s simple and remembered, the soft press of dark hair against his cheek and the heavy fur coat enveloping him. It gives him something concrete to cling to.

“Why are you here..?” he breathes over Thorin’s shoulder. The last thing he wishes is to sound ungrateful, but he can’t keep the confusion out of his voice. “Why would you come all this way?”

“What?” Thorin asks, still radiating joviality. “I’m forbidden from stopping by to visit an old friend?” Neither of them are moving to separate the embrace, and both of them are fine with that.

“No, no, no,” Bilbo gushes, immediately feeling embarrassed afterward. “I mean, yes, you’re welcome here. You’re always welcome here. I just didn’t... expect this. At all.”

Thorin is the first to pull away. “Yes, well,” he states, taking a step back from Bilbo and looking around the place, “I heard a rumor that someone had a habit of making tea around this time.”

With that, he kicks off his heavy boots by the door and makes his way into the kitchen, peering curiously into the teapot on the fire.

Bilbo just looks down at the spoon in his hand and smiles.

*

They share their tea and they share their stories: how Bilbo is faring back in his home and how Thorin is rebuilding his legacy. Bilbo can’t help but feel a bit unaccomplished in his presence, the way the Dwarf King goes on about his people and his grand responsibilities - the most responsibility Bilbo has now is his garden and the cleanliness of his house - but Thorin looks at him in a certain way as they talk, a way that bleeds trust and respect and reminds him of everything he’s been through with the dwarf. It reminds him that he’s saved his life once, twice even, maybe more, and that he is just as important as the king himself. Certain other looks from Thorin remind him that he is important _to_ the king as well.

Bilbo sips on his tea slowly, even when it begins to get cold, because he still isn’t sure how long Thorin is staying, but he’d rather have it later than sooner. Nervous glances at his pocket-watch tell him that it’s five o’clock. It’s only been an hour. Only. It will never feel long enough.

When Thorin stands from his seat and stretches, adjusting the fur coat draped over the back of his chair, Bilbo can’t help his stomach from dropping.

“When are you needed back, my glorious king?” he asks, leaning forward and gripping his tea cup in two hands. He paints his question as a joke with hopes that Thorin won’t hear the worry in it.

The dwarf lets out a sigh as he tilts his head back, stretching his neck. “When I want to go back,” he says to the ceiling.

Bilbo looks up from the table to gaze at him.

“When I feel like it,” he continues. “When I’ve had my fill.”

Warmth rushes to Bilbo’s cheeks because he knows that Thorin is referring to him, but he manages to squeak out one last joke for old time’s sake.

“...Of tea?”

Breath rushes out of Thorin in a short laugh like Bilbo physically pushed it out of him, and when he lowers his head to look down at the hobbit, there is light dancing in his eyes.

“Not exactly,” he retorts, placing his palms flat on the table and leaning across it to get closer to Bilbo. His face approaches until they are only inches apart.

It’s sudden and forward and more than either of them has ever done to express their suppressed affections. It forces Bilbo to snatch the cup from across the table in one hand before taking his cup in the other and pushing himself out of his seat. It’s not fear that forces him upright. It’s weary, nervous excitement.

“Are you done with yours, then?” he asks, quickly making his way to the counter and setting the cups down. With nothing left to curl his hands around, he notices just how badly they are shaking.

If Thorin notices as well, he doesn’t say anything about it. He steps up close to Bilbo, until he’s close enough to nudge his elbow and lean down to murmur.

“I’ve still got plenty of time to kill.”

Bilbo doesn’t pull away with Thorin grasps one of his jittery hands.

“Show me where that garden of yours is, hm?”

*

There are flowers and patches of overgrown grass and a handful of vegetables hanging from their stems. When a breeze comes by, petals dance and sway and bright green blades of grass shiver like swooning lovers. The fertile dirt is dark and moist from fresh water and healthy with sunlight.

Beside the tiny patch, a safe growing distance away, is a small mound, an insignificant rise of dirt amongst the grass. Under the dirt is the acorn. A little green sprout can been seen if one squints hard enough.

He feels a little foolish when he shows it to Thorin - it’s just a sprout in moist soil on the ground - but the permanent crease between Thorin’s eyebrows fades to nonexistence and his lips curve with a gentle smile.

“It looks nice,” Thorin says when he sees it. Bilbo thinks he’s just saying that to be polite, but maybe it really does look nice to him. It sure as hell looks nice to Bilbo.

“It’ll grow over time” the hobbit reassures, more to the little acorn than to Thorin. “Over time.”

They stand side by side in front of his hobbit-hole, looking at the little patch of growth beside his front door. Thorin looks quite lost in thought to Bilbo, and he wonders what the dwarf is thinking about: their friendship, or his greed? Both were prevalent when he brought attention to the acorn. Bilbo can only hope he is focused more on the former.

When they finally step back inside the hole, the sun is beginning to disappear behind the hill and paint the sky beautiful strokes of yellow and orange. Bilbo wonders where all the time has gone.

The Dwarf King fondles the fur on his coat in the kitchen one more time.

“I can never leave here,” he says suddenly. Quietly.

Bilbo squints at him from by the front door and shakes his head in confusion. “What? Why not?”

“I told you the only conditions I would leave upon.”

_“When I want to. When I’ve had my fill.”_

Bilbo’s heart swells until he swears it now resides in his throat.

“Well... You can always come visit again.”

Thorin shakes his head, just once, but slowly and unconvinced. “It’s too great of a distance. It was foolish to come here in the first place. Irresponsible. I cannot even stay for more than a few hours.”

He turns to Bilbo and closes the distance between them, his footsteps sounding loud even without his boots on. Bilbo feels them vibrate through the floorboards beneath his bare feet.

He’s wrapped in Thorin's arms for the second time that evening, though it’s more of Thorin leaning on him than hugging him.

“It doesn’t feel like enough,” Thorin sighs out, his voice growing in volume. “Such risk and travel for such a short moment of solace. I don’t want to make abandoning my kingdom a monthly ritual.”

His weight sags in Bilbo’s arms. Compared to what he looked like when he first arrived at the shire, he is a sad, tired shell of what that dwarf was. Still, he seems happy, Bilbo thinks. Not as happy and confident as when he strut into Bilbo’s home at four o’clock like he owned the place, but goodbyes can indeed do horrible things to people.

“Just come back to the Mountain with me... One trip will solve everything.”

When Bilbo shakes his head, he can feel dark stubble scratch against his cheek and it makes him want to never stop moving. He wants to say yes, more than anything. He wants to flee from his neighbors, from his dishes, from his garden. He wants to return to that world which is rich with wonders and dwarven heroes and epic battles. He wants to be around Thorin again. He wants to say yes, but he doesn’t.

“Shush now. You know I can’t. My life is here. My family, my friends. Everything I own... It’s here. Just as much as everything you own is in Erebor.”

He leans back to press his forehead against Thorin’s and feels the dwarf breathe against his mouth.

Though he can see the gray at Thorin’s temples, he seems so young right now. His eyes are closed, and his hands are gripping Bilbo’s shirt tight, tight like a serpent, like the crushing wave of an ocean that refuses to let go.

“Bilbo. I...” he breathes. His voice is deep and rough, and it vibrates through Bilbo’s body like his footsteps had.

“I know,” Bilbo says, because he does know. They both know. They just can’t ever seem to say it to one another. “I know... I know.”

Thorin’s palm comes up to cup the back of his head and press their foreheads together even harder, like he hopes they can become one.

“I know.”

They stay near each other like this for a long, long while.

Bilbo sees him off when Thorin overcomes his emotional fatigue and drags on his boots and his coat, like a child dreading the burden of doing their chores. After their time spent huddled close and whispering endearments to one another, Thorin has regained some of his spirits however, which gives Bilbo back some energy as well.

“Enjoy the tea?” he asks, smoothing his hands along the fur collar of Thorin’s coat as they stand by the door of the hobbit-hole. It’s an incredibly intimate gesture, but Bilbo finds that his hands aren’t shaking so much anymore. In fact, they aren’t shaking at all.

Thorin manages a small smile paired with mock exasperation. “Eh, it was a bit too sweet for my tastes.”

A scowl slides onto Bilbo’s features in response. “Dwarves...”

Much to his delight, Thorin’s smile widens as he gives a small shake of his head and watches Bilbo with something that is absolutely adoration. “Farewell, master Baggins.”

It’s hard to smile. It hurts to. “Come by and see me again some time, okay? At least a couple of years from now?”

Thorin takes one of his hands into his own briefly, a quick squeeze, before turning away towards the door. “...I’ll try.”

Bilbo stands by his open door as cool night air drifts in and watches Thorin’s back until he can’t see it anymore.

The last thing Thorin bids of him is to take good care of the acorn.


End file.
